The Voice of the Martyrs' blog, sharing powerful stories and timely information that invites and inspires American Christians into fellowship with their persecuted family around the world.

Posts from February 2014

February 28, 2014

Christian leaders in the city of Raqqah, Syria, have reportedly signed an agreement to pay the jizya protection tax and accede to the demands of radical Muslim rebels who now control their city.

The agreement was announced online by The Islamic state in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), one of the radical Sunni groups fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. ISIS is attempting to put in place full Sharia law in the areas of Syria it controls, and has already enforced the wearing of veils by women in the area.

Islamic law teaches that Christians and Jews living in areas under Muslim control must pay a tax known in Arabic as jizya in return for the protection of the Muslim rulers, known in Arabic as dhimma.

The Christians in Raqqah also agreed to a list of conditions, including making no repairs on any church building, no public displays of crosses or other Christian symbols, and not holding Christian services outside of the church building. Even inside the church buildings, Christians are told not to sing or read Scriptures loud enough that a Muslim standing outside the building could hear.

The ISIS statements said they had met with Christian leaders and offered them the choice of converting to Islam, accepting the terms of the dhimma agreement, or risking being killed.

“If they reject…nothing will stand between them and ISIS other than the sword,” the statement said.

Twenty Christian leaders reportedly signed the dhimma agreement, though online their signatures and names were shaded out so it is unclear the number or legitimacy of the signatures or the names of those who signed on behalf of the Christian community.

When the Syrian conflict started, Raqqah was a city of about 300,000 people, with only about 1% Christian. Many Christians fled the city and the area as the conflict grew, so it is unknown how many Christians are currently in the city.

Please pray for Christians in Raqqah and throughout Syria. Pray their faith will be strengthened, and that God will protect and watch over them. Pray also that radical Muslims, like the members of ISIS, will come to know Jesus Christ in a personal way.

February 27, 2014

The following information has been added to www.PrisonerAlert.com allowing people around the world to send letters of encouragement to the wife of a detained Christian worker, as well as sending letters of protest to North Korean officials.

You can also, on the profile page for Mr. Short, listen to an interview with Mrs. Short. The PrisonerAlert profile includes the following information:

John Short, a 75-year-old Australian missionary who lives in Hong Kong with his wife, was questioned and detained by North Korean police while visiting Pyongyang as part of a tour group. Officials detained him reportedly for being in possession of gospel tracts.

Short traveled to Pyongyang on Feb. 15 with the tour group, and police questioned him at his hotel the next day about the Korean-language gospel tracts that he was carrying. Officials reportedly asked him who translated the material into Korean, who sent him and to what organization he belongs.

Short’s wife was informed of his detention by a member of the tour group who was allowed to leave on Feb. 18. This was Short’s second visit to North Korea. His wife said that on his first tour he was very outspoken about his faith and even read the Bible in the presence of North Korean officials who accompanied him.

The tour company has made repeated calls to North Korea, but officials have refused to provide any information. The Australian government is working on Short’s behalf through its embassy in South Korea and has also requested help from Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang.

As a missionary to mainland China since 1964, Short has been arrested on several occasions by Chinese officials. In May 1996, he was arrested and his entry visa to the mainland was revoked. While he was allowed to stay in Hong Kong, he was prevented from helping spread the gospel to inland China for the next two years, until communist authorities determined he was no longer a threat.

You can mail a letter of encouragement to Karen Short at:Mrs. Karen ShortP.O. Box 162Tsuen Wan NTHong KongSAR CHINA

February 26, 2014

RUSSIA: REVEREND MIKHAIL

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

"If you will renounce your faith and trample the cross, you will go free,” the Bolshevik gang said. “If you do not, we will kill you.”

Reverend Mikhail had seen eighty thousand of his fellow Russian Orthodox leaders and lay people murdered by the Communists. Amidst all of that pain and suffering, he decided that God, if he did exist, would not have allowed such misery.

“I don’t believe,” he thought as he faced the gang. “What does a cross mean to me? Let me save my life.”

But when he opened his mouth to go along with the gang’s orders, the words that came out shocked him. “I only believe in one God. I will not trample on the cross!”

The gang put a sack around his shoulders as a royal garment and used his fur hat for Jesus’ crown of thorns. One of them, a former member of Mikhail’s church, knelt before him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews.” They took turns beating him and mocking his God.

Silently, the reverend prayed. “If you exist, please save my life.” As he was beaten, he cried out again, “I believe in one God.”

His show of faith made such an impression on the drunken gang that they released him. When he arrived in his house, he fell face down on the floor, weeping and repeating, “I believe.”

The Christian faith is full of paradoxes. Die to live. Lose to win. Be weak in order to be strong. In fact, unless we are willing to embrace our own failures, we cannot experience God’s strength. When we undergo hardship and trial or even witness the unjust suffering of others from afar, we may begin to doubt God’s goodness. That is a human, natural response. However, God does not reject our human weakness. He restores our weakness with his strength. Therefore, we can rejoice in our failures because they remind us that human strength is no substitute for godly power. We may fail, but our God remains strong. What are you learning about your own weakness? What does that teach you about God’s strength?

This is one of the readings from the book, Extreme Devotion, available in print from VOM’s online bookstore. You can also receive devotional thoughts daily via email. Sign up here.

February 25, 2014

Each month VOM produces "The Jesus Freaks Minute," a daily radio-PSA that shares the stories of the persecuted church with Christian radio listeners all over the United States and around the world. Here's the script for one of the spots that aired this month, a spot entitled DON'T PRAY:

[LYRICS:] What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus Freak? What will people do when they find that it’s true?

[TOBYMAC:] Hey, this is TobyMac with truth every Jesus Freak should hear from the Voice of the Martyrs.

[VOM:] Jesus taught us to pray. But he also taught us how not to pray. In Matthew, Jesus said, “don’t pray on street corners so you can be seen by others.” And also, “do not use meaningless repetition” as the heathen do.

The Voice of the Martyrs has also heard from persecuted pastors around the world of ways not to pray. A pastor in Israel said, “Don’t pray for my protection; [instead] pray that I will understand what God is trying to teach me.”

A Vietnamese pastor said, “Don’t pray that our border will be opened. Pray that heaven will be opened.” For more on making your prayers powerful, go online to persecution.com.

Please share in the comments where you've heard the Jesus Freaks Minute radio broadcasts.

February 24, 2014

Government persecution of Christians living in China is on the rise, but “we won’t lose heart,” said Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid.

According to ChinaAid’s recent 2013 report, persecution cases increased by 38.82 percent from 2012 to 2013 when considering data in the following six categories: number of cases, number of people persecuted, number of people detained, number of people sentenced, number of abuse cases, and number of people abused. The most significant increase was in the number of people persecuted. In 2012, 4,919 people were persecuted for their faith, compared with 7,424 people in 2013, a 50.9 percent increase.

A government-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement church building in China.

The Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion. And visitors to the country can see that the church is certainly not absent in China. Bibles are available through government-approved churches, and people are allowed to attend services at government-approved locations and times. This, however, is not the reality for many evangelical Christians in China.

Churches that are not members of the state-run Three-Self Church are often viewed with contempt. Members of house churches are viewed as dissenters, and authorities try a variety of tactics to get them to conform. Pastors and church members alike have been persecuted for not conforming to policies of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and for refusing to give up their outspoken faith. In 2013, there were 1,470 people detained for Christian activities.

Among those detained in 2013 are two men who were trying to help local believers open a new Christian book store in Taiyuan, Shanxi province. On June 17, 2013, Wenxi Li was sentenced to two years in prison and Lacheng Ren was sentenced to five years in prison for their involvement with the Enyu Bookstore, which government authorities called an “illegal business.” While awaiting trial, Wenxi led three people to Christ. His family plans to appeal the case.

China may try to control and restrict the Christian faith, but believers are demonstrating that Christ has already won their true freedom. 2 Corinthians 4:15–17 reads:

“For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

While they risk their personal safety and sometimes face false imprisonment, they trust in God’s future glory. They do not lose hope that God will continue to use them and many more will come to Christ. They won’t lose heart.

“Ann Kay” is a writer for VOM. She learned about VOM five years ago when she read Tortured for Christ and began receiving the newsletter. She is passionate about reaching the world for Christ and sharing stories of the persecuted church.

February 20, 2014

“I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

I recently traveled to Turkey, where I was honored to meet with some incredible brothers who are “fighting the good fight” in a very difficult place. Turkey has long been a distinctive junction, bridging Europe and Asia in the historic city of Istanbul, which was sometimes historically referred to as “Islambol,” meaning “City of Islam.”

These brothers traveled to meet with me in the shadow of the Hagia Sophia, the former church that witnessed the slaughter of Christian martyrs after the fall of Constantinople. As we talked about their own experience of persecution in their city, they lit up with joy as they related how God continues to work in the very city where Emperor Diocletian’s palace was discovered following an earthquake in 1999. The brothers I met with are actively overseeing an indigenous-led community of Christians that meets just steps away from this palace.

Why is this so remarkable? The Roman Emperor Diocletian instituted an empire-wide persecution of Christians soon after he assumed leadership in 284 A.D. During a period that is now referred to as the “Diocletianic Persecution,” or the “Great Persecution,” he launched the most aggressive and far-reaching attempt to destroy Christianity in Roman history. He specifically issued four edicts in an attempt to destroy Christianity. Diocletian’s first edict fiercely forbid Christians to assemble and ordered the destruction of Bibles and meeting places.

The day prior to Diocletian’s first edict, he demanded that the church at Nicomedia, where he spent his winters, be burned along with all of its Bibles. Diocletian’s dream was to wipe Christianity off of the face of the earth. But, of course, that is not the end of the story.

One of the Turkish brothers I met with is now pastoring a church literally feet away from Diocletian’s winter palace. After foreign missionaries were forced to leave, he stepped up and is leading a thriving congregation in the same neighborhood where martyr’s blood once stained the streets. He has been directly targeted by his adversaries, and he and his family have endured much suffering.

When I asked him about his suffering, he reflected thoughtfully on the persecution that he endured and said, with a smile, “It was not a pleasing experience, but it was a powerful experience.”

Join with me in praying for our brothers and sisters who are earnestly contending for the faith in Turkey, and let’s pray that God will enable us to stand strong wherever He has called us.

Dr. Jason Peters serves in VOM’s International Ministries department, traveling frequently to meet with our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world. He lived overseas for five years and has ministered in more than 30 countries as diverse as Cuba, Nepal, Iraq, Nigeria and Indonesia. He and his wife, Kimberly, along with their five children, count it a great honor to serve with the persecuted church.

In graphic detail the report characterizes a regime that draws comparisons with the terrible evils of the Nazis under Adolph Hitler.

CNN prepared this report about the findings of the UN, and about what will now be done with them:

Naturally, the North Korean Government dismissed the report as a political plot by their enemies.

If you are a Christian, it is important to remember as you read the report that among those facing these desperate conditions and abusive treatment are some of our Christian brothers and sisters, who are singled out as enemies of the regime because they refuse to acknowledge the deity of the Kim family.

CNN warns you that some of the scenes in this video may disturb you. Our hope is that disturbance will drive you to pray for our North Korean family.

February 17, 2014

VOM's Todd Nettleton was interviewed last week by Mission Network News for a story about Christian persecution hearings held in Washington DC and especially about the currently-vacant post within the U.S. State Department of "Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom."

Here is a portion of the resulting article:

International (MNN) — Of all the Christian persecution stories covered in the 21st century, the one singled out for focus in Washington, D.C. was the 2008 pogrom in India’s Orissa State.

At a hearing before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations, John L. Allen, Jr., author of “The Global War on Christians,” pointed out these events occur in countries where Christianity is expanding but religious freedom is lacking. Allen also used his time to challenge U.S. President Barack Obama to quickly fill the post of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

One question that came up was why the Orissa pogrom was chosen as the incident to focus on at the hearing, especially when compared to the attacks of the Joseph Colony in Pakistan, the Egypt Muslim Brotherhood attacks, and the Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria. Todd Nettleton, spokesman for The Voice of the Martyrs USA, answered, “I think the focus went in that direction because of the nature of the attacks, because of the violence of the attacks, and the number of people who were affected. Not only killed, more than 100 people lost their lives; but literally thousands of people were displaced by these attacks. Some of them are still displaced and it’s six years later.”

When the other countries in question were pointed out as comparable, Nettleton added, “The other thing that I think brings a focus to it is the lack of action by the Indian government to hold the perpetrators accountable.”

Though the Orissa government claims it took strict action against the accused, their reports show that of the hundreds of charges brought, just 75 cases ended in convictions. There were an additional 477 people convicted for lesser offenses connected to property damage, but little else has been done to recompense the 50,000 left homeless after the 2008 attacks.

That brings us to the remarks made by Elliott Abrams, a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), who told the subcommittee that the lack of an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom sends the wrong message about the U.S. stance on religious freedom. Nettleton explains, “I think the message sent by this administration has been that this is not a high priority: ‘There are other things that we are more interested in,’ and that tone has really carried through.”

Following the abrupt departure by Susanne Johnson-Cook in October, the Obama administration did not set a timeline to replace her. The post has only been filled for 30 months of the Obama Administration, which seems to reinforce the true priorities of the Administration. Nettleton says, “The fact that this International Religious Freedom post has been vacant so much of the Obama administration says those words are nice, but the actions really haven’t matched up to that. We haven’t seen that commitment in terms of the day-to-day hard work that it takes to influence other countries, to provide more freedom for our Christian brothers and sisters.”

February 14, 2014

Today is Valentine's Day, a day Americans focus on love and romance. But most of those celebrating don't know that the man for whom this day is named was a Christian persecuted because of his Christian actions.

Valentine’s Day is celebrated every year on February 14th, but why? Many buy cards and candied hearts and do not know there was a man named Valentine. Who was the man behind this holiday that has become known for cupid, chocolate, roses and love notes saying, “Be my Valentine”?

Valentine, or Valentinus as he was known, was a leader in the church and lived in the Roman Empire during the third century. However, there are three Valentines who are noted as having lived in the late third century during Emperor Claudius II’s reign. One was a priest in Rome, another a bishop of Interamna (modern Terni, Italy), and the third a martyr in a Roman province of Africa. Some believe the martyrdom of all three men named Valentinus occurred on February 14th. Many scholars believe two of them, the priest in Rome and the bishop of Interamna, are the same, suggesting the bishop of Interamna was a Roman priest who became bishop and was sentenced there and brought to Rome for his execution. It is believed Valentinus’ martyrdom occurred about the year 269 A.D.

Even though some have questioned the existence of Valentinus, many would agree his life is a mystery. History proved his existence when archaeologists unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to him. He is mentioned in Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend, written about saints around the year 1260. (It is noted this was perhaps the most widely read book after the Bible during the late Middle Ages.) He was also featured in a woodcut in the illustrated book called The Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in 1493.

Sources indicate it was Emperor Claudius II who had Valentinus executed for secretly marrying Roman soldiers, defying an order from the emperor that soldiers were not allowed to marry. Claudius (also called Claudius the Cruel) was having difficulty recruiting soldiers and believed Roman men were unwilling to leave their loved ones because soldiers were required to fight for at least 25 years. Therefore, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements. However, Valentinus, along with Marius, secretly married couples until he was apprehended and brought before the Prefect of Rome. It is even believed Valentinus tried to convert Emperor Claudius. In The Story of Saint Valentine: More Than Cards and Candied Hearts, the conversation between Emperor Cludius and Velentinus is based on the one printed in de Voragine’s Golden Legend. Another legend says during Valentinus’ imprisonment, while awaiting his execution, he restored the sight of his jailer’s daughter. (In this story we call the jailer “Marcus.”) Yet another says on the eve of his death, he wrote a note to the jailer’s daughter and signed it, “From your Valentine.”

In 496 A.D., more than 200 years after Valentinus was executed, a church leader marked February 14th as a celebration to honor Valentinus’ courageous life to replace a pagan Roman holiday. February 14th was the day the Romans honored Juno, the Queen of the Roman gods and goddesses and also known as the goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, started the Feast of Lupercalia, which honored Faunus, the god of fertility and forests. On the eve of Lupercalia, the names of Roman girls were written on pieces of paper and placed in jars. Young men would draw a girl’s name and be partnered with that girl throughout the festival. Sometimes this pairing lasted the whole year, and often they would fall in love and later marry.

And what about cupid? Why does his image appear during Valentine’s Day? Cupid was the Roman god of love.

Despite the mystery, legends and questions masking the man Valentine, this story was written to convey his courageous life and death. May The Story of St. Valentine: More Than Cards and Candy Hearts inspire children of all ages to boldly present Jesus Christ to a world in need of His hope (I Peter 3:15)!